Featuring an interview with memoir, fiction, and nonfiction writer Tessa McWatt.

This May, add some great reads to your list, submit your debut manuscript for awards, and see if my novel is indeed writing itself. For the full interview with Tessa McWatt, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.

📚 Recommendations for ravenous readers

One young adult book, a literary novel, and an upmarket tale of an ill-fated couple.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

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✏️ Resources for wonderful writers

Check out Eleanor Anstruther on Substack. I came across her on the Write and Wrong podcast and love how she champions self/indie publishing. Great news: she’ll be my guest in June!

Top tip for reviewing your writing: pop it into Word if it’s not there already, go to the Review tab and then choose Read Aloud. Great for catching awkward phrases and repeated words.

If you’re writing your debut novel and can get together a 300-word synopsis and 5,000 words by the end of May, check out the Bridport, Bath, Blue Pencil Agency, and First Novel prizes.

👣 Updates on my moseying

I’ve been busy putting together an application for a grant. More news about that in July, be it yay!! or nay.

My writing group is going strong, with our third meeting this coming weekend. I haven’t spent much time writing since last month’s update. So far, I’ve written a synopsis of my novel and am about 3,000 words in, aiming to get my submission ready for the four contests mentioned above.

Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 15 pending🚫 4 rejected🎉 1 accepted by a hybrid publisher—I’m waiting to see what happens with the others🟰 20 total

🎙️ Author interview with Tessa McWatt

Tessa McWatt's memoir, Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, won the OCM Bocas Prize for NonFiction 2020 and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and the Governor-General's Award. A professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, she is also the author of seven novels and two books for young people. Her fiction has been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the City of Toronto Book Awards, the OCM Bocas Prize and the Society of Authors' Volcano Prize. She is one of the winners of the Eccles British Library Award 2018 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is also a librettist, and she works on interdisciplinary projects and community-based life writing. Born in Guyana, she grew up in Canada, and now makes her home in London, England.

Here’s the Instagram account for her new book, The Snag.

Tune into the The Spark podcast for the full interview!

Photo by Bill Knight.

📙 Where to find my writing

"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK

“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK

“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UK

Find out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.

Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.

You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com